"Reasonable network management": DiFi attempting to sneak anti-free internet laws into stimulus?
Is Diane Feinstein trying to sneak draconian internet control legislation into the stimulus bill? It sure looks that way.
US Senator Dianne Feinstein hopes to update President Barack Obama's $838bn economic stimulus package so that American ISPs can deter child pornography, copyright infringement, and other unlawful activity by way of "reasonable network management."
Clearly, a lobbyist whispering in Feinstein's ear has taken Comcast's now famous euphemism even further into the realm of nonsense.
According to Public Knowledge, Feinstein's network management amendment did not find a home in the stimulus bill that landed on the Senate floor. But lobbyists speaking with the Washington DC-based internet watchdog said that California's senior Senator is now hoping to insert this language via conference committee - a House-Senate pow-wow were bill disputes are resolved.
"This is the most backdoor of all the backdoor ways of doing things," Public Knowledge's Art Brodsky told The Reg. "Conference committees are notorious for being the most opaque of all legislative processes."
This is unacceptable for any of you who value a free and open internet, which I assume is 99.9% of C&L readers. Please contact your representatives and urge them to fight back against this shady backdoor violation of the spirit of the internet.
I'm with John Cole 100% on this:
As baseball season is getting close, I would like to propose a trade. We give the Republicans Dianne Feinstein and a PTBNL and they give us Olympia Snowe. This is a solid trade for us. With Judd Gregg at commerce, we would almost complete the New England rout, and Feinstein, as a newly minted Republican, will go down to certain defeat in California. Additionally, there is nothing in this agreement that says the PTBNL can’t be Nelson or Lieberman.
the other night had on a former publisher, that advocated that internet users should have to pay for everything on the internet, in the interests of paying the journalists of course. Get ready for it. Like highspeed isn't already expensive enough.
refering to ISP or network management or anything like that... I just did a search. Now I don't have a copy of the one from today yet. That is the one they did Sunday the 8th. I didn't think there was anything but I checked to make sure.
that no 11th hour bullshit has been inserted. it would be no surprise from difi.
Some stuff you can't make up!
Where would I be without my free Youtube links?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
not a surprise if she did. that's why the senate wanted to quickly trumpet agreement.
Some stuff you can't make up!
I hope Sen. Feinstein is successful. Why shouldn't government support for broadband networks go to networks that have controls in place to protect against these things? You can have an open and free Internet that has network management. These anti-network management people are ridiculous--it's kind of like claiming you can't have an open and free transportation network with traffic lights.
... of these "traffic lights" to telecoms? Because they are so trustworthy? Because they will act in the public interest? Since when?
If you don't want your kids watching porn, then stop letting the internet do your babysitting.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Bingo!
That is not "kids watching porn online."
I agree that child safety online is a parent issue.
... regulatory authority to privately owned companies that will save us from the horrible scourge of child pornography?
We have a justice system that is subject to constitutional and electoral constraints. Why is that not good enough?
Pesky Constitution; pesky voters.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
You just need both.
Maybe because the ISPs have been using this "Think of the children!" excuse to limit OTHER file-sharers(not just pornographers), though the ISPs lost suits filed against them for these practices, iirc.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
you did the same shit with comics and rock and roll
its always the dems that try to protect me from myself
i need unfiltered access to the internet, because i do alot of downloading in the course of my work
that means i dont need traffic cops slowing me down
Consider supporting groups like the CBLDF (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund) as well as the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation).
So the question you need to consider is: what methodology will ISP's use to exercise this 'reasonable' network management.
How does a string of 1's & 0's get identified as child pornography? Doesn't that require the ISP to either examine every file sent by every user, or to have applications that can scan your hard drives?
And, take note of the language: child pornography, copyright infringement, and OTHER 'unlawful activities.'
It's easy to wave 'kiddie porn' as the red flag, but we already know Comcast diddled with peer-to-peer transmissions by illegally inserting themselves into the transaction and sending false signals to each participant. A court told them to knock it off.
And what's with the open-ended clause? What other unlawful activities? Underage drinking? Teenage sex? DUI? Illegal immigration? Amnesty International? Greenpeace? PeTA? Earth First?
Also, don't neglect that this 'reasonable network management' would likely conflict with Constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure as defined by the Fourth Amendment. That's the standard of probable cause, not the 'reasonable suspicion' crap used to justify the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretap nonsense.
This is not the same as an employer having jurisdiction over what you send/do with computers/network access that belongs to them, the company/corporation, and not you, the individual.
Just a traffic light? I don't buy it.
This is the same line of reasoning that says, "I don't care if the government searches my house or eavesdrops on my phone without a warrant ... I'm not doing anything wrong." That misses the point entirely.
Don't get me wrong: child pornography is a problem. Copyright infringement is a problem. But they are not caused by a free Internet and will not be solved by "reasonable network management." Let's not conflate the issues and pretend otherwise.
As with many problems in this country, we refuse to address them directly so we seek to avoid them through law. Prohibition was an example. Drugs, same thing. Let's deal with problems like child porn and child abuse head-on, and not try some squirrelly roundabout route to give the appearance of problem-solving while doing nothing.
All Feinstein's amendment would do is inconvenience people while telecoms make more money.
Stopping 'kiddie porn' isn't the reason why the telecoms want this provision - it's the 'copyright infringement' language.
They're banking on the old game of 'if you're against this, then you must be morally suspect/stupid/corrupt/a child pornographer,' just as the Bush Administration played the 'OMg! T3Rr0R1$T$!!!' card to excuse everything from torture to wiretaps.
if feinstein is really trying this i say trade her for senator snowe.
I cannot stand this woman. I laugh my ass off when I hear wingnuts complain about the librul' Senator from California.
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
Otherwise we'd be depending on the likes of CNN and Fox for our reality based news. And you know that can't happen. The freedom of the press is as important as the freedom of the net. There interchangeable in other words. Glad you are covering it.
I'd say Contact Diane Feinstein.. But her Contact Page went down. That's a good sign. Let's not let up.. Here is is.
http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?...
Feed the Fire.
Hahahaha...nice...maybe they are updating her page and making viewers pay
she's fucked up.
but she's voted for by the same people who voted for Ahnold.
Some stuff you can't make up!
She's "my" Senator. The EVIL one. No I didn't vote for her-alot of us didn't-we are just STUCK with her.
I will call my OTHER Senator-the good one-Barbara Boxer.
Didn't vote for the recall and didn't vote for AHNOLD either. I like my Governor to at least know how to pronounce the name of my state.
Thas what this is about, restricting the press. She REALLY doesn't like that we are learning the real story on Israel too. People are understanding what they are going to the Gazan's is WRONG and it has nothing to do with Race.
Without the freedom of the internet the whole meaning of the phenomenon would absolutely change. I don't mind digital security to protect me. But never take away my freedom through censorship.
http://www.justaskgemalto.com
keep in mind that the notion of premium service has the primary intention of making you pay more for the level of service you already have.
Some stuff you can't make up!
my internets (heh heh) from my cold dead hands!
... pricing the average citizen out of the internet. Sure, it's a free marketplace of ideas, as long as you can pay for it.
She's is one hell of a BAD Senator.
Needs to be voted OUT!
re: ahnold's voters are her voters.
Some stuff you can't make up!
MSNBC's poll....talk about not an overwhelming majority anywhere
http://www.newsvine.com/_question/2009/02/11/...
Talk about some loaded questions. A naive sounding "Democratic" answer followed by Republican variation number 1, 2, and 3.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Ya, my thoughts exactly. Was wondering why the answers were limited to the responses they wanted. Kinda on tune with "do you still beat your wife yes or no"
Did nobody else catch that?
asleep at the switch. ;o
Great writing, too. Very subtle.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
Hollywood has supported the Democrats, and they're looking for some help on infringement. Remember, the last time the Demos were in power, we were hearing about Holling's (former Sen D-SC) "Fritz" chip to be placed in all computers.
I don't think this is Hollywood, although they would be one of the backers.
The big thing at stake is net neutrality. The evil thing about this move is that the telcos are making it appear that they are carrying an extra burden on by filtering requirments imposed on them (poor ISPs ...). However, this is exactly what they want. First, they would get tax money to build the filtering technology (which would never work anyway). Next, they will use this as a reason for higher latency/slower speed for higher traffic sites (watchout youtube...). The next thing is for the ISPs to offer high traffic publishers "premium" processing services to help correct the latency/speed problems.
Sounds like something Dogbert would come up with!
"This is the most backdoor of all the backdoor ways of doing things," Public Knowledge's Art Brodsky told The Reg. "Conference committees are notorious for being the most opaque of all legislative processes."
This reminds me of when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act (UIGEA) was snuck into the SAFE ports act...had absolutely nothing to do with keeping ports safer, but in it went...
It is up to the California democratic party to roust her out.
If you want her out, get involved and boot her ass out.
Saying "it's Ahnold's people" who put her there is BS. Boxer is also a CA senator and while hardly a prize IMHO, she's nowhere near as corrupt and pathetic as Feinstein. So, if you can elect Boxer, you can oust Feinstein.
Ditch her ASAP. No excuses. You've got plenty of time to organise.
It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
-George Carlin
Feinstein needs to go. This is a shameless and dispicable attempt to curtail our first amendment rights.
Call your reps tomorrow. This needs to get shot down ASAP or we will slip right back into Bush's World of Corruption, Part Deux.
Dog, it must frost Republican's and DINO's cupcakes that anything is actually "free" in this country. Somebody's got to be making a buck out of absolutely everything. I eagerly look forward to the day they start charging us for air.
Regrettably, I can't complain to my Senator as it's the illustrious Mrs. Joker...er...Feinstein. This is truly reprehensible and is clearly a way for large media companies to start recouping income they're losing from the intertubes sucking away readers and viewers.
If we look at the history of things that have been done in the name of protecting the children I can think of very few, if any, things that have actually done that.
The last time I complained to Feinstein (about Gen. Michael Hayden), I got a bedbug letter lauding her hard work on keeping our country safe, and how she held our Constitutional rights in high regard.
She voted for Elmer Fudd anyway.
The thought of voting Republican is sickening, but sometimes cutting out the cancer just hurts like hell for awhile. And DiFi IS a cancer in the Dem Party and just needs to go. We in CA need to not re-elect her.
I've been using Macs for twenty years, and though I recognized instantly that I was looking at cartoon, my heart jumped when I saw that old-fashioned Apple bomb error message, complete with Chicago font. Good cartoon.
Leave the damn internet alone.
Her email access is totally screwed, so I emailed Boxer and told her not to support this garbage.
Man I despise that kind of politics.
And DiFi epitomizes it.
"Someday somebody related to some of these sufferers, these victims, these collaterally damaged souls, may try to kill you. And I have to tell you, I think you’ll have it coming." - Christopher Cooper
You probably mean Ben, but my congresscritter Bill Nelson is almost as bad.
Sometimes things that seem superficially plausible are in reality deeply stupid. Don't get me wrong, I despise DiFi, but Progressive Punch gives Feinstein a lifetime 84.99 progressive rating, while Snowe comes in with a miserable 36.82. How is that a good deal for Democrats?
I think Feinstein is really, really wrong on some very important issues and I don't trust her a bit, except to serve the needs of the BigPeople, but Olympia Snowe's voting record is terrible. She's even significantly to the right of Ben Nelson, so I fail to see how she is preferable to Feinstein.
The proper solution to the DiFi problem is not to trade her to the Republicans, but to retire her from public office.
Chris Bowers is saying that the anti-net-neutrality language didn't make it in.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Thanks Fiver . . . but the House/Senate reconciliation on the stim bill isn't OVER yet, is it? So there's still room and time to insert anything, behind the scenes dealmaking not withstanding.
Sci-Fi was in bed for the telco's on FISA. I wonder how she's getting her money from them, in order to legislate for them . . . . hmmm. Or maybe her husband has 'business' with the telco's. Anyone know?
This is no joking matter.
- A joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq, October 11, 2002 - Joint Resolution Passed
Boxer (D-CA), Nay
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
- Michael B. Mukasey, of New York, to be Attorney General, November 8, 2007 - Nomination Confirmed
Boxer (D-CA), Nay
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
- To limit retroactive immunity for providing assistance to the United States to instances in which a Federal court determines the assistance was provided in connection with an intelligence activity that was constitutional, July 9, 2008, 12:20 PM - Amendment Rejected
Boxer (D-CA), Yea
Feingold (D-WI), Yea
Obama (D-IL), Yea
Reid (D-NV), Yea (even old Harry voted for this)
Feinstein (D-CA), Nay
- URS Corp., a San Francisco planning and engineering firm partially owned by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband, landed an Army contract Monday worth up to $600 million, Tuesday, April 22, 2003
let the republicans have LIEberman. as a nebraskan, i am embarrassed that nelson represents my state.
assholes. the both of them.
Good luck everyone, I have tried for several years to get both DiFi and Boxer to pull their heads out, with no luck. They have their own agenda and enough ignorant voters to keep them in power. Just remember they just re-elected two other waste of skin - Pelosi and Issa
subverting free speech on the net. I can't stand this woman, I hope the American people have the good sense to get rid of her. I wish I could have some sort of separate internet free of the threats of American...and Canadian Politicians.
Perhaps all Americans should surrender their eyes, as these could be used to see child pornography.
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